


Can't pull off the cheer

by foggys_cupcake_girl



Series: Nightmare on Dream Street [4]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, BAMF Credence Barebone, Bad Parenting, Christmas, Christmas Angst, Cinnamon Roll Percival Graves, Credence is done with people hurting his precious Percy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Family Issues, First Christmas, Graves badly needs a therapist, Holidays, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Original Percival Graves Has PTSD, Original Percival Graves Needs a Hug, Original Percival Graves is Bad at Feelings, Panic Attacks, Protective Credence Barebone, and Credence just wants to help but has no idea what's going on, references to institutionalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28311138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foggys_cupcake_girl/pseuds/foggys_cupcake_girl
Summary: Percival Graves is a perfectionist. Credence knows this. Everyone knows this. The problem isn't that he's a perfectionist. The problem is that he punishes himself when things go wrong. And during the holidays, there is a lot of potential for things to go wrong.(Companion to "Ghostly Presents," but you don't necessarily have to read that one to understand this one.)
Relationships: Credence Barebone/Original Percival Graves, Tina Goldstein/Newt Scamander (background)
Series: Nightmare on Dream Street [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960255
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Can't pull off the cheer

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all. This one is very heavy on the Angsty Feels. Proceed with caution
> 
> Huge huge huge HUGE honking TW on this one for discussion of conversion therapy. We don't see it taking place, it's discussed in flashback and past tense, and it is a very mild form of said therapy, but *please please please* read end notes for TW spoilers and avoid if it's going to be a huge trigger for you.
> 
> Other TWs:  
> -Mental health issues in the form of unchecked anxiety and PTSD  
> -Mentioned past homphobia; attacks on a gay teenager  
> -Panic/anxiety attacks  
> -Seasonal/holiday-related depression and anxiety  
> -One brief mention of past self-harm  
> -Because it's Credence: implied past child abuse
> 
> PLEASE check end notes for spoilers before reading if any of that will be problematic for you.
> 
> Merry Christmas lovelies ^_^ Be on the lookout for a happier Christmas piece over the next couple of days ;)

_I can’t take it, this is the time to smile I can’t fake it_

_Please allow me the chance now to break it down_

_It’s not snow, it’s rain coming down_

_And the lights are cool, but they burn out_

_And I can’t pull off the cheer, not this year, not this year_

~

The Christmas card is…cute. I have to actively fight the wave of nausea that hits me at the sight of my mother’s handwriting, but I will admit the card _is_ nice. It’s a generic one with a cute little cartoon nativity, _Merry Christmas!_ embossed on the front in neat cursive. Inside, my mother has written a perky invitation (summons, more like) to _bring your intended home for Christmas and let us meet him._

My _intended._ So she knows about the engagement, then, but not what came after. She doesn’t know that my recent two-week vacation was really my honeymoon. If she had, the card would’ve been less “bring him home” and more “how dare you,” which has been the general consensus since Credence and I eloped.

Actually, I wonder, if she did know, would she even really care about it the way she would if my sister Elaine had eloped? Or does she see this as me playing house with a boy, make-believing my family is as real as hers?

Christmas was a _thing_ in my house as a kid. Advent was ceremonially celebrated with nightly evening prayer, lighting the wreath and singing _O Come Emmanuel_ before reciting the weekly Collect. We celebrated all twelve days of Christmas and ended the holidays with a Twelfth Night party at our church. Dancing, caroling, bonfires, looking for the bean in the cake to find out who was queen or king of the feast. When I was younger, I loved it. But when I was done with college I began to avoid it entirely, only coming home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, going so far as to volunteer for holiday shifts at work to avoid the family if I could.

I throw the card down and stalk out of the apartment. Right now I have to go get Credence from Newt’s place. I’ll worry about my parents later. _But it’s not fair,_ I think as I drive to the Goldsteins’ decades-old family house. _He grew up without a family. I could share mine, couldn’t I? Don’t I owe him that?_ Snotty as she might be, my mother will _adore_ Credence. She might not think he’s really my husband, but she’ll definitely think he’s sweet. And if I don’t tell Credence what she did, well. He’ll never know. It’s that simple.

By the time I get to Newt and Tina’s place it’s well into twilight, and the Christmas lights have all come on. Most of the displays are extravagant, showing off the old, fancy houses with their elaborate landscaping. Newt and Tina’s house is the only one that has conceded to tackiness rather than elegance: a giant inflatable Grinch sits conspicuously on their lawn, just like every year. The HOA hates it but it’s not technically forbidden, so: giant Grinch it is.

The house is warm and comfortable and inviting. Newt has decorated the place with the cheesiest, most delightfully secular Christmas things. A cheerful light-up penguin in a Santa hat greets me in the entryway, followed by a string of light-up Coke cans pointing to the kitchen. From the doorway I can see into the den, where Tina’s menorah has already been lit…as has the two-foot-tall plush Porg crammed into a Santa suit and wrapped with Christmas lights.

Bowling for Soup’s Christmas album is blasting in the kitchen, and I lean in the doorway to watch. Tina, who’s never had much use for Christmas, just sits at the kitchen table, drinking tea and and smiling at the chaos while Newt and Credence put the finishing touches on a batch of cookies. Credence’s jeans are covered in powdered sugar; his hair is tied back, but a loose strand is stuck to his face with icing. His face is lit up in a way that suggests he’s just repainted the Sistine Chapel, and he’s singing along to “All I Want For Christmas is You.”

He’s _happy._ He’s so happy, and my heart just about melts out of my ribcage at the sight. 

Tina looks up and sees me standing in the doorway. “Newt,” she mock-scolds her husband, “I told you not to leave the front door unlocked. Look, a strange man just wandered in off the street.”

Credence turns, sees me, and cries out in delight as he bounds across the kitchen and hurls himself at me for a hug, like we’ve been separated for a month instead of a few hours. I stagger backwards and nearly fall, much to the amusement of Newt and Tina. “Think he missed you, Graves?” Newt teases me.

“Shit, what kind of love potion have you been feeding him?” Tina quips as Credence withdraws, pink-faced, and stands there shyly by my side.

“Easy there,” I warn them, sliding an arm around my sticky husband. “Credence, love, I’m throwing you in the washing machine when we get home.”

He rolls his eyes, his embarrassment gone. “You’re such a neat freak,” he says in an almost accusing tone. He gestures around the kitchen (which has been decked out with holiday lights in the shape of flamingos and palm trees) and asks, “When are we going to put up _our_ Christmas stuff?”

Oh. Right. I keep forgetting that, for all it feels like we’ve known each other for centuries, this is actually our first Christmas together. Last year he went skiing with Queenie and Tina (who don’t actually celebrate Christmas) while I stayed home to work. Tina snorts at his question. “Graves thinks _Christmas_ is a dirty word,” she informs my husband.

Credence looks stricken, and I quickly protest, “That’s not true! I just don’t…get into it…the way you people do!”

“Coming from an Irish man to a Jewish woman, that truly means a lot,” Tina says dryly, and Newt cracks up.

But when our eyes meet across the room his smile drops and I know he knows what’s in my head. That this time of year has too many painful memories associated to really bring me any real joy. I don’t _hate_ Christmas. I just don’t _love_ it the way I did when I was little. (The fact that a few years ago my Christmas was spent recovering in a hospital after a madman held me hostage for almost three months does not help.) I’m perfectly content to go to the office party that Sera insists on throwing, bake cookies with Newt, make fun of Hallmark movies with the Goldstein girls. But I don’t celebrate on my own.

Which is unfortunate, because at twenty-three, Credence has only three “real” Christmases under his belt, two of them spent with his mostly-Jewish adopted family, and he will be dying to celebrate properly. Shit. I’m going to have to actually dig deep, I realize, and try to make things good for him the way my parents made it good for me as a kid.

I pull Credence in for a distracted hug, silently telegraphing _help me_ to Newt with my eyes. He quickly gets the message and loudly says, “Credence, why don’t you go get cleaned up a little. I’ll put your half of the cookies in the car.”

Credence obediently hops to the bathroom, and Newt flies across the kitchen and over to me. “Tell me what you need,” he says quietly, linking his arm through mine.

Tina joins him by my side. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know how to do this anymore,” I blurt out, and tell them in a frantic whisper about my mother’s card, the invitation to have Christmas dinner with the family, the fact that I actually don’t _have_ any decorations at home, and of course the realization that Credence will actually want to celebrate in a way I haven’t for years. “I have to pull this off, fast. It’s already the tenth,” I finish.

“Or you could tell him the truth,” Tina says patiently. “I’m pretty sure you two could come to some kind of compromise, like we did.”

Newt, however, gives me a sympathetic look. “I’ll sneak a box of old Christmas decorations in your car with the cookies. It’ll mostly be religious and more traditional things, is that all right?”

“Anything. He knows I was raised Anglican, I’m sure I can play it off—” I hear the bathroom door open. “Shit.”

“I’ll get the stuff from the basement.” Newt exits stage right.

Tina sighs and puts her arm around me, and I gratefully lean into the contact. “You don’t have to do it, you know,” she says softly. “There isn’t a holiday in the world he cares about more than you.”

“I have to,” I tell her, “because he’s mine to take care of and this is what you do for someone you love. Don’t look at me like that, Tina. I’ll be fine.”

Tina sighs again and lets go just as Credence comes back down the hall. I know she thinks I’m more fragile than I think I am, but she thinks that about everyone. Newt sneaks back in through the back door and gives me an _all clear_ hand signal and I relax a little. I can do this. I can pull this off. And damn it, Credence deserves it.

As long as I make everything absolutely perfect for him, I’ll be happy.

~

The morning after Newt gives me the box of decorations, I go to work to find Seraphina glowering at me. This is nothing new. She hasn’t forgiven me for running off to elope. “We’ve had two requests for new contracts, just this morning,” she tells me coolly. “You may have to put in a few extra hours this weekend. You know. Make up for all the time you missed.”

“I’ll deal with it,” I promise as I sit down at my desk. Seraphina sits primly in the chair opposite mine. This is bad; usually she’ll sit _on_ my desk, usually while we’re sharing a snack or watching a YouTube video. She’s still upset, then.

Sera and I have been in business together for going on eight years now. We do private home security for, not to put too fine a point on it, rich assholes who don’t care how much it costs to make sure no one gets within 100 feet of their precious McMansion. We’ve been friends for nearly two decades and most of the time, we work pretty well together.

Which is why, I’m guessing, she rightly feels a little let down by the fact that she wasn’t at my wedding. “Sera,” I prompt her gently after a solid two minutes of silent staring, “do you have something you want to tell me?”

She glares at me for another few seconds, just to demonstrate that she can, before she says, “I wanted to be there, you know.”

Deep sigh. This conversation is a repeat. “I know, and I’m sorry. We just…really didn’t want a big wedding.”

“Who said anything about a ‘big’ one? I just wanted to _be there for you,_ you don’t have to have a massive party to have your best friend there,” she says unhappily. “You even could’ve skyped me in, for God’s sake, if it was really _that_ spur of the moment.”

I sigh again and lean over my desk, letting my face drop into my hands. “What do you want me to do?” I ask her through my fingers. “Build a time machine? I’m _sorry._ I don’t know what you want from me. How can I make it up to you?”

When I look up she’s still pouting. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just stay mad.”

It would be petulant coming from anyone else. But Seraphina has seen me truly at my worst, and she’s not one to throw petty tantrums. For her to even joke about not forgiving me _ever,_ she must be next-level hurt over this. My stomach twists as I consider it from her perspective: her best friend ran off to celebrate an important milestone without her. Of course she’s upset.

“Don’t be like that,” I coax softly, reaching out to her across my desk. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. It wasn’t…it wasn’t _just_ my decision, you know?” I wince as the words come out; I shouldn’t blame Credence but it’s true, he didn’t want a big wedding either. “Sera, please…tell me how to fix this.”

She looks at me for a minute, then reaches out and lets her hand hover over mine, and for the briefest moment her angry pout softens. And then she snaps her hand back and throws me another sulky look. “I’ll think about it,” she says, which is Seraphina for _hell to the no,_ and gets up and leaves.

I sit back at my desk, crushed, and try to ignore the fact that my stomach feels like it’s about to push its way out of my abdomen and run off. So much for Christmas spirit, I think bitterly, and bury myself in work to distract from the stabbing pain in my heart.

~

Credence is still at the daycare when I get home, so I take the opportunity to unpack the box from Newt and see what I’ve got to work with. It’s not a whole lot, honestly. An ancient plastic-greenery advent wreath with half-melted candles, a little creche carved from wood, a nutcracker that vaguely resembles Doc Brown, some big-bulbed 80’s-style outdoor lights, a couple of silver bead garlands with the paint chipping, and some fake plastic holly leaves. I almost cry when I see it all laid out. Credence is rightly going to think this is utterly pathetic.

I rush over to the nearest Meijer’s and snap up whatever I can get my hands on. Ornaments for a tree we’ll get later, tinsel garlands, proper LED lights that won’t set my curtains on fire, window clings, a wreath for the door, sparkly votives and candles that smell like Christmas, stockings, a tree stand and a tree skirt. I even remember to hit the hardware aisles for nails and tape and those sticky-back hooks to hang it all up. Then, because I’m me, I hit the baking aisles hard, get gingerbread house kits, cake and cookie mixes, tubes of icing and tubs of sprinkles in every color of the rainbow, cans of pumpkin and condensed milk, bags of chocolate chips and jars of marshmallow fluff.

Back at the house I unpack it all and arrange the decor in boxes, make it look like I do this every year. Credence isn’t home yet, so I set to work in the kitchen, put together a pumpkin cake mix and shove it in the oven, mix up a cinnamon glaze while it’s baking. There’s no way I’ll outdo Jacob in the baking department, but I can and I _will_ give Credence something nice to come home to, at least. 

He gets back just as I’m pulling the cake out of the oven. “Ooh, that looks so good,” he sighs. “God, I’m starving. Those kids wore me out today—oh!” His eyes go wide as he looks around the living room and takes in the sight of my conspicuously-arranged Christmas boxes. “Oh my God, are we—can we do it tonight?” 

“We can do anything you want,” I promise, and come around from behind the kitchen counter to take him into my arms. “We can get a tree this weekend too, if you think you might like that.” He makes a tiny little squeak of delight and I pull him in close, my heart fluttering in my chest. He’s so _good,_ I think as I hold him, and as long as I can have this, I think I can take whatever else is happening around me. Just please, God, let me hold onto him.

~

The next week passes in a blur of alternating periods of joy and exhaustion. I put my whole heart and soul into making every minute that Credence spends with me as wonderful as I can. I pull lost recipes out of the depths of my memory and bake him as many treats as I can. I take him to get a tree, and the discomfort of lying in cold, slushy mud to cut the damn thing down is worth the dreamy look in his eyes that night as he admires it in our living room.

Credence isn’t quite as in love with this time of year as he is with Halloween. And I can definitely understand that. For Credence, monsters and ghouls and jump-scares are cathartic in a way that just isn’t comparable to eating fudge out of the pan by an electric fireplace. But he gobbles it all up anyway, giggling like a child at Christmas movies that are seen fresh through his eyes and dancing along to pop songs that I was sick of long before he came into my life.

I expect him to latch onto the lighter, less religiously-toned movies like _Elf_ and _Home Alone._ Instead, he falls deeply in love with _Krampus_ and _It’s A Wonderful Life_ and the Disney motion-capture iteration of _A Christmas Carol._ The last one comes as a real surprise. I expected him to reject anything so heavily Christian in flavor, that it would remind him too much of his mother. But Credence has a bigger heart and purer soul than I ever could predict, and he has held onto some vague remnants of his faith.

“I love the Ghost of Christmas Present,” he sighs happily halfway into our third viewing of _A Christmas Carol_ . _“These so-called ‘men of the cloth’ are as strange to me and my kin as if they never lived. Charge their doings to them, not us.”_

Oh…now I understand. He loves the idea of there being people out there who don’t believe as his mother did. And I realize, as my heart shatters into tiny pieces and I hold him tight, that this precious boy still fears somewhere deep in his soul that he’s in danger of hellfire for loving me. It’s all I can do to not cry as he melts into my arms, obliviously gushing about the movie’s beautiful soundtrack.

There’s so much that I need to do, I think desperately. So much I need to do _for him._ I cannot rest, not for a minute, until Credence Graves knows he is loved beyond all possible measure, until he knows that if Satan were to come for his soul, they’d have to fight me for it.

Work is terrible this week, because Seraphina is still cold to me. Theseus leaves me four angry messages and then stops returning my calls. Even sweet, bubbly Queenie is cool and distant, and I understand why: Tina married Newt in the courthouse as well, and Queenie has now been deprived of both attending her sister’s wedding and her surrogate baby brother’s. I dread having to tell my family if this is how my friends are reacting, quite frankly.

To try and smooth things over I invite Queenie and Jacob over for dinner one night and it is a full on chapter of accidents. First I burn the chicken and surreptitiously replace it with a rotisserie chicken from Costco, and hope no one notices. Then just as the buzzer rings a string of lights blows out, then another, and Credence winds up having to show them in while I’m frantically using the fix-it gun on the misbehaving lights. I break two plates while trying to get dinner on the table, spill cranberry juice all over my white shirt while making drinks, and top it all off by nearly setting the tablecloth on fire with a taper.

“Geez, honey,” Queenie says with a grimace as I try to get wax out of the white fabric, “no wonder you two ran off to the courthouse. If this is how stressed you are just trying to entertain us, I can’t imagine you planning a full wedding.”

She means well, I know. But what I hear is not _I understand and forgive you._ I hear, _leave this kind of stuff to people who know what they’re doing._

I quietly excuse myself after that while Credence animatedly tells her about snorkeling with stingrays on our cruise, and after nearly ten minutes of sitting on the edge of the bathtub with my fingernails boring holes in my pant legs trying to hold it together, I throw up the rotisserie chicken and have to rinse my mouth three times to erase the evidence before I go rejoin the others.

The very next day at work Sera shouts at me for losing a contract until I finally blow up and demand, “This is still about the fucking wedding, isn’t it?”

She gets angry, of course, and instead of fielding it gently the way I usually do I stand there and take it while she tells me in no uncertain terms how awful I am. “You don’t care about us,” she concludes. “Me or Theo or the Goldsteins. God, Newt! He must be devastated, not getting to even _see_ you get married, let alone be your best man.”

I don’t tell her that Newt actually helped me plan my elopement. “What can I do, Sera?” I ask her for the ten thousandth time. “How can I fix it?” _Please, I’m begging you, exact a price. I’ll say as many hail Marys as you want, I’ll fall on my own sword, just stop torturing me._

“Nothing, unless you can get married again and let me be there this time,” she snaps and leaves the room.

That night at three AM, while Credence peacefully sleeps beside me, I sit up in bed with my phone and look up _post-elopement receptions_ and _vow renewals_ until my head is buzzing and my stomach hurts and every app on my phone is spamming me with wedding ads.

~

In the week leading up to Christmas I begin to have unmysterious dreams of Krampus coming after me. I wake in the middle of the night gasping and reaching out desperately for Credence, _not enough, not enough, not enough_ pounding in my head. Because it never _is_ enough. I’ve accepted that and at the same time I _can’t._ It has to be enough, it _has_ to be, for Credence’s sake more so than mine. _It has to be perfect. I need to make this good for him._

“Want to tell me what’s wrong?” he asks me one morning as I drag myself to the breakfast table with bags the size of cantaloupe slices under my eyes. “You’re not sleeping. No use pretending otherwise, Percy, I can see you’re exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” I say automatically.

“Please call in sick and sleep today.”

“I can’t, Sera hates me as it is,” I say automatically, and then wince as the look on Credence’s face changes from suspicious to stricken. “Oh, love, I’m sorry. It’s nothing you need to worry about,” I assure him.

He doesn’t need to know that every day I go to work feeling on edge. That I am constantly on the verge of breaking. Because I _can’t_ break. Not now. Not like this. I need to hold myself together because Credence deserves better and it’s up to me to see he gets it. “She’s angry,” I eventually admit, “because I didn’t invite her to our wedding. But listen, it’s not your concern, don’t you worry about it for a minute.” I shuffle to the kitchen counter and kiss his forehead. “I’ll take care of everything,” I promise him.

“Percy—”

“I’m fine,” I repeat.

“You need a therapist,” Credence blurts out, and then claps his hand over his mouth. “Oh God—pretend I didn’t just—”

“Sh-h-h. Would that make you feel better, sweetheart?” I ask, and when he nods with tears in his eyes my heart wrenches. “Oh, Credence…okay, lovely. First thing after the holidays I’ll make an appointment with my doctor, get them to refer me to someone, all right? Would that make you feel better?” The thought of ever setting foot in a therapist’s office again makes me physically ill. I’d rather go to the electric chair. But if this is what it takes to make him happy…

Oh, and he _is_ happy, his face floods with mingled joy and relief as he hurls himself into my arms. “Thank you,” he breathes. “Oh, _thank you,_ Percy, _yes._ Yes, if you take care of yourself it’ll make me feel so much better.” He draws back and wipes away the tears before they can fall. “That’s the only Christmas present I need,” he tells me happily. “Knowing you’ll be safe and healthy.”

I force a smile and pet his hair as I realize, with my stomach tying itself in knots again, that I have not, in fact, actually gotten him a real Christmas present yet. _You fucking idiot._

Work is a nightmare. I am made useless by lack of sleep. A fog has settled over me that will not clear, and I drift through the day like I’m in a trance. Even Sera notices, and the usual bite is not in her voice when she asks if I’m all right. “I’m fine,” I tell her, and then as my voice breaks, “He wants me to see a shrink, and I can’t figure out what the hell to get him for Christmas, and I have to take him to meet my parents, and everyone hates me but yeah. I’m okay. I’m okay—”

A hysterical laugh bubbles its way out of me and before I have any real chance to be utterly horrified at myself, the wall behind me seems to tilt. I lean into it, relief flooding through me at the thought of letting go, and then Sera’s face blurs and I can hear her calling my name but no, it’s too late, I’m gone, I’m fucking _gone._

~  
  


“You’re okay, Graves. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Something cool on my forehead, and the pressure of a gentle hand around mine, slowly brings me back to the surface. I latch onto Sera’s voice like a lifeline as she guides me back to the world of the living. “I’m sorry,” is the first thing I say. “What happened?”

“You passed out on me.” Her voice tightens to the point of sounding furious, as it does when she’s worried, and she asks, point blank, “How are you _really?”_

“Stressed,” I admit, because she’ll know if I lie. “And tired. I’m so tired. I can’t remember the last time I slept more than three hours a night.”

Sera looks horrified. “And you came to work? God, how long have you been like this?”

“Don’t ask.” I try to sit up and she clamps her hand down on my shoulder, forcing me to stay lying down. I realize I’m on the couch in her office, and I can’t help but wonder how I got here. “What, did you haul me in here like a sack of potatoes, or—”

“Not the point, Percival,” she cuts me off, and something in her tone breaks what’s left of my defenses.

“Please stop,” I tell her, sounding pathetic even to myself. “I can’t take it. Please don’t hate me, I can’t deal with it anymore, I’ll do anything you want, just—”

 _I’ll do anything you want, just stop hurting me._ It’s what I said to _him_ the day before Tina found me. If I’ve been reduced to saying it to my best friend—no. This is too much. Fuck, this is too much, I’m going to fall apart, I’m—

“Okay. Okay. It’s okay.” I’m sitting up now (when did I do that again?) and Sera’s sitting with me on the couch, her arms around me tight. “It’s okay. I’m here. I don’t hate you, sh-h-h, you’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

I realize I’m shaking and clinging to her like a scared child and I hate it, God I hate it, but I’m weak and I know it. “I’m sorry,” I moan into her shoulder, the words sticking in my throat as they’re forced out. “I’m so sorry, if I could take it back I would—”

“No you wouldn’t, and you shouldn’t,” she says immediately, her hand running soothingly up and down my back. “It’s okay. _I’m_ sorry. I was being a bitch.” She squeezes me tight and lean into her, trying to absorb some of the strength that I so badly need. “I love you,” she tells me, “and I wanted to be there with you. But it’s your choice and I should’ve respected it, and I’m sorry. And I sure as hell should’ve noticed you were on the verge of losing it.” She lets go and draws back to look at me. “Did you say Credence wanted you to go to therapy? _Fuck,_ Graves…you gonna tell him?”

I laugh bitterly. “No need. We’re invited to my family’s place on Christmas Eve, I’m sure my mother would be more than happy to fill him in.”

Sera looks at me through sympathetic eyes. “You’re going, aren’t you.”

“I already said I would. It won’t kill me, Sera. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry? For fuck’s sake, you look like death warmed over, you just admitted you haven’t slept properly in weeks, but sure, _don’t worry.”_ She rolls her eyes. “What are we going to do with you? You know what, take the rest of the day off. Actually—what’s tomorrow, the 21st? Take the rest of the _week_ off.” She sighs and squeezes both my hands. “Listen, I was awful to you, okay? Let me make it up to you. Take a few days off. Go be with Credence.”

I feel like crying. I know she means well, but all I hear is _you can’t even do your job. Go play in the sandbox, let the big kids handle this._ “But I can at least—”

“Graves. Either go home to your husband, or I’m taking you to the hospital. Your choice,” Seraphina says firmly, and I’ve known her long enough to know she means it.

When I get back, Credence is of course still at the day care. I scroll Facebook events for a while until I find that a local dance school is doing _The Nutcracker_ and they have a show tonight, and I quickly snap up tickets. It’ll be old to me, but it’ll be new to him and the look on his face will be nothing short of magical.

I go in the kitchen and make ham soup and soda bread and butterscotch pie; if we’re going to the ballet tonight we’ll need to eat right when he gets home. I’m so tired I almost forget to put ham in the soup, almost put peanut butter chips instead of butterscotch in the pie filling. But it’s worth the effort when Credence gets home, sees the food on the table and lights up like our Christmas tree. “Percy, you’re a magician,” he sighs happily. “You’re so good to me, you know that? I love you so much…”

“Wait until you see what we’re doing tonight,” I tell him, and relish his squeal of delight when he finds out we’re going to see a ballet. He’s never done that before and it makes my heart swell up like the Grinch’s to see him so excited. It’s so good, seeing him so happy, that I’m almost able to forget the headache that sets in long before we even make it to the theater.

I haven’t seen _The Nutcracker_ since I was a kid. But just like with everything else, watching it through the fresh eyes of my husband brings a new glow to it. When the nutcracker turns into a handsome prince at the end of the first act, he presses his head to my shoulder and I hear the soft snuffling sound he makes when he cries.

Credence almost never cries out of sadness. Not anymore. When he’s sad he goes quiet; when he’s overwhelmed or so happy he can’t believe it he cries. In other words: if he’s this emotional, I’ve done something good. I hold him close and let him quiver in my arms, bracing myself for the avalanche of positive comments I’ll hear on the way home.

Sure enough the minute we get to the car… “Can we see it every year?” he asks eagerly. “God, I can’t _imagine_ being able to dance like that.”

“Of course we can come back. We can do whatever you want.”

Credence takes that _whatever you want_ to heart and that night when we get home he draws me into bed with sweet promises and sweeter kisses. “Let me take care of you tonight,” he whispers in my ear as he lays me out beneath him. “You’re so good to me. Let me be good to you.”

My head is throbbing and I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to do this tonight. But he’s persistent and gentle, and it doesn’t take long before I’m melting under his hands. I’m his first, his _only,_ and sometimes I forget that because God, does Credence know how to make me feel good. For a half-hour I’m almost able to forget the pain in my head, the gnawing guilt in my stomach, the exhaustion I’ve felt all month…

I fall asleep quickly for the first time in forever, melting into my husband’s arms, my fears and pains a tiger waiting to pounce as soon as I wake up.

~

My stomach hurts so bad when I wake up on Christmas Eve that I almost hope I have the flu. Credence will be disappointed, but at least I won’t have to go home tonight. But after a couple of zantac and a handful of rolaids I’m (mostly) all right. So: time to get to work. I rise at 4 AM and make a pound of peppermint bark and a huge batch of homemade peanut butter cups, then make those into treat bags for the family members there tonight. When Credence gets up later, I lie and say I “just got up” too.

Credence is in full excited-puppy mode. He kicks me out of the bedroom to wrap presents, blasts all of the Christmas music that Newt played for him, munches candy canes like they’re about to be taken away from him. After lunch he pulls me down onto the couch and turns on the TV, and we sit through _Rudolph_ and _Muppet Family Christmas_ and _Frosty the Snowman._ It’s lovely, and for a couple of very short hours, I forget about everything that’s waiting for me tonight.

But eventually the shows end and we have to dress for the big event. “Will your family like me?” Credence asks anxiously as he does up my tie.

“Oh, sweetheart. They’ll love you.” I lean in and kiss his forehead. “If they get mad at us for eloping, let me take the heat. Trust me, I know how to handle their drama.” Credence frowns at that, but thankfully lets it go.

While Credence puts the other stuff in the car, I remember the tradition of putting out a gingerbread house for Santa and realize I should have made one as a host gift for my parents. Oops. I rip into one of the kits that I bought to put together with Credence (and never got around to, because I suck), throw on an apron and assemble it. It’s not my best work (in my defense, I haven’t made a gingerbread house in _years),_ but it’s better than Mum thinking I’ve forgotten.

Credence comes back inside just in time to see me completely screw up and drop a cannister of icing on top of the badly-assembled house. It’s hardly a great loss, but at the sound of the gingerbread cracking I let out a dismayed cry and lean over on the counter, trying to hide my face before he can see how upset I am.

_(Idiot. Pathetic. Can’t even do this right.)_

I feel Credence’s hand rubbing reassuring circles on my back. “Please talk to me,” he coaxes me gently. “You’re upset. Please let me help.”

It’s a bitter, mocking echo to me, a reflection of our relationship in the early days. Back when all we had were emails and phone calls and blind faith, the unspoken pact to let ourselves pine without expecting reciprocation. _Let me help,_ I said every night when he called me with more questions than I knew how to answer, when he struggled to accept that, despite his mother’s efforts to make him “holy,” he was in fact gay, when he needed reassurance after a difficult session with his therapist or a long day at school.

 _Let me help._ Now he’s all right, and I’m the mess. I’m honestly not sure if I want to laugh or cry.

“We don’t need it,” he insists when I try to explain about the house. “It’s okay. It’s time to go, and it’ll be all right. I promise. Will it make you feel better if we stop and get a pre-assembled one on the way?”

I shake my head. No. Nothing will make me feel better now except for the arrival of December 26th.

~

It starts raining as we head to the church, which feels like a bad sign. The rain comes down softly at first, then progressively heavier, washing away what little snow has managed to accumulate over the last few weeks. It’s silly, I know, but I’ve always hated green Christmases. If it’s not snowing, it just feels wrong.

Credence twists anxiously in his seat when we get to the church, and I have to reach over and untangle him from his seatbelt. “Remember,” I tell him gently as I help him out of the car, “we’re allowed to relax in here. I’ve known this priest since I was nineteen, and I can personally assure you he’s fine with gay people.” I don’t tell him how I know. That story is too painful. “So just be yourself, okay lovely? Let them all see how wonderful you are. And don’t be too upset if my mother implies we’re just ‘playing house’ or whatever. She never really got the whole ‘gay’ thing.”

“And your dad?” he asks as we head for the entrance of the church.

“Wouldn’t care if I was married to Charlie Manson as long as he treated me right. He’ll _love you,_ Credence. Trust me.”

Ellie intercepts us before we reach the greeters. She and her husband Matt spend a good ten minutes fawning over Credence (as I knew they would). Then he meets Father Joey (who also, unsurprisingly, seems to adore my husband). Finally—gulp—we come face to face with my parents.

“Mum, Dad,” I begin nervously, suddenly well aware of Ellie and Matt standing behind us (and well aware that this is going to set off a tiny bomb), “this is my husband, Credence.”

Ellie gasps sharply behind me. “What the _hell,_ Percival,” she says flatly.

Mum looks shocked. She stares at Credence as if she’s never seen anything like him before. “You got _married,”_ she says slowly, the words awkwardly falling from her lips like an uncertain condemnation.

Dad looks surprised for a moment, then he recovers, reaches out, and bestows upon Credence one of those two-handed handshakes that turns more into a hand-hold at the end. “My son loves you,” he says warmly, “and that’s good enough for me.”

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, feeling Mum’s and Ellie’s eyes on me, and then cringe because I didn’t mean to apologize. “We—we eloped. It was. It was really important to us that it—that it was just us, when we got married, I—I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Mum says, finally having recovered. “Did it perhaps not cross your mind that I’d like to see my only son get married?”

“Now Jennifer,” Dad says bracingly, “they’re both grown men and it was their decision, and besides, this isn’t the time—”

“Well we’ll make it the damned time then, because he never comes home anymore,” Mum shoots back, and then turns her pained face to me. “And really, you just spring this on us here? ‘Hello mother, I know it’s been a while, but by the way I’m married now?’”

 _Oh, you actually acknowledge that I_ am _married and not just “playing around?” That’s nice of you,_ I almost snap at her. I don’t. “Mum, I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “But it was our choice. It was what Credence wanted and I put him first because he’s mine to take care of, understand? I’m sorry if that interferes with your plans, but—”

“Your father’s right, this isn’t the time,” she cuts me off, but right before she turns away and grabs a program and candle on her way into the sanctuary, I catch a look at her face and it has the same expression as Seraphina’s when we argued in her office. She’s not just angry. She’s wounded.

And as Newt would happily inform you, wounded predators are dangerous.

~

Credence is absolutely enchanted with the church, as I knew he would be (it’s warm and well-lit and musical and inviting, the opposite of that cold, barren warehouse in which he was raised), and everyone else is absolutely enchanted with Credence. Once her shock at my marriage has worn off, Ellie goes back to loving on him, and Dad does much of the same. Mum thaws towards him, but is still, unsurprisingly, very cold towards me.

It’s been twenty years, I think a little bitterly as we all head home together, and she still blames me for our rift. Of course. It couldn’t possibly be _her_ fault. After all, she was just “trying to do right by me.”

We come home to a sumptuous post-church dinner, light our centerpiece Advent wreath, light the Christ candle for the first time this year, sing _Joy to the World_ rather than _O Come Emmanuel_ because it’s Christmas Eve and Jesus isn’t just coming anymore, He is allegedly _here,_ and then sit down to our meal. “So, Percival,” Mum says airily as we all sit down, “are you still doing that little security thing with Seraphina?”

Fire one. She hates that I left the police force, even though I had damn good reasons to do so. “It’s not ‘little,’ Mum. We have two branch offices now,” I tell her stiffly.

“Oh, I see.” To Credence she adds, “You’ll have to forgive him, dear. He could very well have made commissioner if he’d wanted to, but he chose to go into private business instead. But of course I’m sure you know all that.”

Credence—who knows damn well that I left after being kidnapped by a maniac and psychologically tortured for three months—nods minutely, then turns to stare at me, his eyes wide with an unmistakable _are you okay?_ I nod briefly. I’m used to this; it’s why I don’t come home.

We make it through another course before Mum strikes again. “So when you went radio-silent for two weeks around Thanksgiving,” she says as she passes around a tray of sweet-smelling sliced ham, “I assume you were off getting married then, Percival? Is that why you didn’t take any of our calls? Missed Thanksgiving without a word?”

Now, this really is a low blow. My family is from Ireland, for fuck’s sake. We literally just use American Thanksgiving as an excuse to eat a shitload of tasty food. It’s not a big holiday at all for us…Mum is just being petty and trying to make me feel guilty.

And unfortunately, it’s working. _Fire two,_ I think grimly before I answer, “We were on a cruise, actually. Newt and Tina knew where we were in case of an emergency.”

“And you didn’t think to let your family know?” She tuts and shakes her head. To Credence she adds, her voice low and sympathetic, “He can be a wee bit selfish. Don’t take it to heart.”

Credence, to his credit, does not say what I would, which is something like _what the ever living fuck?_ “I’ve never known Percy to have a selfish bone in his body,” he tells Mum, his voice low but very firm. “He’s more giving and kind than anyone I’ve ever met.”

That actually shuts her up for a while. We’re clearing the plates and getting ready for coffee and dessert when, in response to Credence mentioning that once we decided to elope I took charge and got us booked on the cruise within two days, Mum remarks, “That sounds like our Percival. If he can’t have it his way he doesn’t want it done at all.”

Credence chokes on his own tongue and is about to blurt out something I’m sure we’d all regret later when Dad intervenes. “Now Jennifer, you know that’s not true, and I’m sure you’re embarrassing both of them.”

“Well he should _know,_ dear,” Mum tells him patiently. “It’s probably not too late for an annulment if things go wrong.”

 _“MOTHER!”_ Ellie squawks. Matt drops his fork in shock. Credence looks as if he’s just been struck over the head.

“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you,” I mutter as I glare down at my only half-eaten dinner. Normally I’d be scarfing down this food like a man starved. Tonight I can barely swallow a bite. My stomach hurts so bad I think I might actually be dying.

Mum waits for dessert to drop this gem: “Credence darling, you do know if he ever gets too much you can just come here and hide out a bit, yeah?”

Credence looks startled. “Come again?”

“Well you know, when he’s upset about something he sulks something awful, and you seem like such a sweet boy, you shouldn’t have to put up with that—”

“I’m sorry,” he cuts her off, sounding a little angry now, “I have no idea who or _what_ you’re talking about, but I don’t think you can possibly be talking about _my_ Percy.” He reaches out and laces a protective hand through my arm. “And I’m _definitely_ not going to ask for an annulment, I mean. What the _hell?”_

I’ve never heard him swear at another person like that and it unlocks something dark and satisfying inside me. _Credence cares. Credence doesn’t mind that you’re as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Credence_ loves _you._

But Mum, unfortunately, isn’t done. “Now don’t take it too personally,” she warns him sweetly. “It’s just that you’re new to the family and since you married so quickly you probably don’t know everything. I assure you he’s a good boy. I suppose it’s just as well he’s not in a conventional marriage—”

“Ex _cuse_ me?” Credence gasps, his eyes darkening. I shouldn’t find this hot, but oh God, I want to get down on my knees for him right now, tear my heart out and offer it to him on a plate, give him my entire soul. He is so, _so_ beautiful when he’s angry, all fiery-eyed and intense.

“—because really, you know, no woman would ever put up with his mood swings,” my mother continues, oblivious to the fact that my husband is sitting here with his fists clenched and his eyes cloudy, a fae ready to put her under a curse. “So it’s really best for all involved that he turned out…the way he did.”

What happens next actually might as well occur in slow motion. It’s that terrible.

“That’s pretty nice,” I mutter furiously as I poke at the delicious-looking chocolate-covered Bailey’s cheesecake that I’m too nauseous to eat, “coming from the woman who tried to turn me straight.”

I don’t realize until the entire table goes silent that I didn’t just _think_ that. I said it out loud, and probably not half as quietly as I should have. Oh. _Oh, shit._ It takes a second to sink in, and then when it does I make a strangled, weak little sound of pure fear. I can’t bear to turn my head. I can feel Credence’s eyes on me and it burns my heart like a cauterizing iron. I stare down at my plate, wishing fervently for an asteroid to strike the dining room.

There’s dead silence, and then Ellie says exactly what I’m sure Credence is thinking. “Mum. What in the actual _fuck.”_

“Now, it’s not like we sent him to a camp or anything—”

“Jesus _Christ,_ Jennifer.” My father sounds utterly horrified. I don’t know why it makes me feel better that he never knew. But I finally manage to raise my eyes and see that he looks as furious as I felt, back at eighteen when I realized the truth about the “therapist” that my mother sent me to the summer before I left for college.

“Percy?” Credence’s voice is soft, nonthreatening, and when I finally turn my head to him he looks absolutely wounded. “What happened?” he asks me, and my throat closes up.

~

Here’s what really happened that summer:

I came out to someone I thought was a close friend. He took it as a come-on and outed me to half the school two weeks before graduation. This being the 90’s, it went about as well as you’d expect.

I toughed it out as well as I could, but the third time I came home from school with a black eye, my dad had had enough. He stormed the castle like only a pissed-off Irishman can, mowing down the principal, the superintendent, and half the teachers in one fell swoop. My mother, meanwhile, coaxed me to see a therapist as a way to “cope with the drama.”

What I didn’t understand for the first few sessions was that the nice “Christian therapist” was not one of us. Not Episcopalian, not Anglican, definitely not a friend of queer people. The first few times he just got to know me. Then it got weird. _Wouldn’t you be happier if you were straight_ became a throughline. I tried to tell her, tried to explain I was uncomfortable. She insisted that was normal, just part of the process.

I should be thankful it never descended to the levels that I’ve heard of since, forms of torture that have only been exposed with the advancement of gay rights for youths and laws to prohibit such awful practices. I’ve heard things that make my stomach turn. Electroshock therapy, hard labor, deprivation, starvation, aversion therapy, forced isolation. The worst I ever got was when the man my mother sent me to tried to convince me, with the most twisted form of CBT that I could have envisioned, to wear a rubber band around my wrist and snap it every time I caught myself thinking dirty thoughts about other boys.

I got off lucky. I know that.

So why, I’ve asked myself for twenty years now, does it still hurt like hell?

~

Credence holds my hand in both of his. “We’re leaving,” he says, first softly to me, and then angrily to the rest of the table. His eyes lock in on my mother, who looks politely puzzled (and God, how I want to laugh at the Stepford Wife look on her face; was I born from a robot?) and he says coldly, “I can see why he never comes home. What is _wrong_ with you?”

I feel…strange. Numb. I don’t know what’s wrong. Usually these memories don’t give me panic flashbacks. But right now I feel on the verge of breaking. I am still _here;_ I’m not checked out yet, but I can’t really _think._

“I thought it would stop the bullying if we eliminated the root cause,” she says, as if it were obvious. “Clearly it didn’t work, but as I say, it worked out for the best—”

“Oh my God,” Credence breathes, sounding utterly floored. “I just. I can’t even—Percy, come on, let’s go, I need to get you out of here.”

 _No,_ some tiny part of my brain that isn’t numbed by the absurdity cries out, _we can’t go yet, we haven’t done the midnight caroling, we haven’t watched_ It’s A Wonderful Life, _it’s not complete. The celebration isn’t over, he’ll feel cheated, we can’t go._ “I’m all right,” I try to tell him. “I’m fine. We don’t have to leave.”

“No. We’re going.” Credence stands up and gently pulls me to my feet, and this is when I realize, even as that peculiar numb feeling begins to travel from my head down my spine, that something is really wrong. My chest is tight. I suck in a gasp of air and it brings no relief. “Percy,” I hear him saying, one hand over my heart, the other pressed between my shoulder blades. “Percy. _Percy,_ I need you to straighten up for me, can you—”

“What’s wrong with him?” I hear Ellie ask, feel a small hand on my shoulder what must be a split-second later.

“Panic attack,” I hear Credence say tersely. “I need to get him out of here.”

The numbness evolves, shifts into a familiar cotton-wool feeling that I know is a sign of trouble; I can’t just pull myself out of this. I know it’s happening but I can’t stop it, can’t make it go away— “I’m sorry,” I hear myself repeating on autopilot. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. Credence I’m sorry, please don’t be angry, I’m sorry.”

“Sh-h-h.” There’s the _clink_ of a seatbelt, the slam of a car door, the sound of an engine turning over. “I’m taking you home,” he promises me. “I need you to put your head back for me, there, just like that. Close your eyes. That’s good. Just like that, now—I’m going to count to four, and the whole time I’m counting I need you to breathe in. Then hold it while I count to seven, and then release it, _very slowly,_ as I count to eight. Can you do that for me, Percy, please?”

_Anything. I’ll do anything you want, just don’t hate me._

It takes a few rounds of counted-out breathing, along with continuous squeezes of my hand across the gearshift, before I start to feel my own limbs again, before the cotton-y feeling recedes and I remember where I am. “Oh my God, fuck, I’m so sor—”

“Sh-h-h. No more apologies,” Credence tells me sternly. He reaches over the gearshift and takes my hand again, driving one-handed. I hate when he does this, but right now I’m still a little out of it and can’t find it in me to tell him to stop. Especially not when his hand around mine feels so good. “We need to talk later,” he says. “But right now, I need to get you home and make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Percy, this is the second time in less than three months that you’ve driven yourself to a complete breakdown. You’re not okay. You know it, I know it, please don’t try to lie to me or to yourself because that’s not fair.” He pulls the car over and turns to look at me. It’s dark, but I can still see his face, can still clearly see the concern written there. “Why didn’t you tell me? God, is _that_ why you’ve never gone to therapy to deal with—the whole Grindelwald thing?”

Gellert Grindelwald is the man who held me hostage. And yes, I did go to a few police force-mandated sessions afterwards. But I wanted to be there about as much as I wanted to be back in the man’s basement being tortured, so I faked my way out. Told them what they wanted to hear. My captain praised me for being resilient. I smiled, thanked him, then went home and burned myself on purpose to make sure I could still feel pain.

“Yes, okay?” I sigh and let my head drop back against the headrest again. “I can’t stand the thought of talking to some jerk who’s paid to fuck around in my head.”

“That’s not—oh, God. That’s not what it’s like at all, first of all, and second, when I said I thought you needed to go—”

“I will. If you want me to.”

“Percy, no!” Credence sounds absolutely crushed. “No,” he repeats, sounding near tears. “You can’t do this to yourself. Are you _ever_ going to say no to me? Because I can’t take that, you just going along with whatever you think I want. I can’t. You _have_ to stop this, you’re going to kill yourself.”

“What are you talking ab—”

“Do you think I don’t notice?” he demands angrily. “Do you think I don’t see it that you’ve completely run yourself ragged these last couple of weeks? Do you think it doesn’t kill me to hear you talk to yourself the way you do when you make even the tiniest mistake? Do you think I don’t know—”

His voice breaks. I wait, my heart pounding, and when he starts up again his voice has taken on that deadly quiet tone that means he’s so upset it takes real physical effort to make himself speak. “When are you going to understand,” he asks tensely, “that I _love you,_ and there are no—there are no terms and conditions there, okay? It’s not, _I love you until you fuck up a gingerbread house and then we’re done._ It’s not, _I love you but only if you do everything I want._ I love you. And it totally kills me to see you drive yourself to actual insanity trying to make things perfect, trying to give me everything I want—Percy, all I want right now is to never see you dissociate like you did at that theme park again.”

“You think I don’t want that too? It’s not like I can control it,” I defend myself.

“No, but you can take care of yourself,” he shoots back. “You can learn some coping mechanisms instead of just burning yourself out all the time!” He sounds as if he’s in actual, physical pain. “You keep hurting yourself,” he says quietly, desperately, “and I know you’re doing it because you want to control everything, make everything perfect, but you can’t. And I don’t know how to make you _stop._ I don’t know how to get it through to you that _I don’t care_ if everything is ‘perfect’ as long as _you are okay.”_

My heart has long broken by this point, shards dropping into my already-hurting stomach like shattered Christmas ornaments. “I don’t know,” I whisper.

He nods and reaches over to stroke the back of my neck. I moan softly, my body automatically melting into the touch. “Please let me help,” he entreats me quietly. “Please. You’ve done so much, you’ve worked yourself into the ground trying to make me happy, give me everything. Let me give you something back. Please.”

“I don’t know if I know how—”

“You do when we’re in bed,” Credence points out. It’s not a mean thing, a jab meant to silence me. He’s just stating a fact.

But sex is a different thing. He gets off on taking charge in bed and I like that, and I love the pleasure and relaxation of letting go and letting him have his way with me. But that’s different than what he’s asking for now. “I’ll try,” I offer, and my heart nearly explodes with relief when he seems to accept it.

~

At home I am given no chance to clean up the gingerbread mess in the kitchen. Credence takes me straight to bed, undresses and sponge-bathes me like I’m a baby, makes me lie down so he can hold me. We lie in bed together, my back pressed to his chest while he gently strokes my arm, my side, my belly. “Relax,” he repeats in a low, soft lilt that eventually lulls me into obeying. “Relax, love. I’m here. You can rest. You _need_ to rest. Let me hold you. Let me take care of you.”

He puts me to sleep like that, all soft words and soothing touches, and this time I manage to make it a full night without a raging nightmare.

In the morning instinct drives me to get up while he’s still in bed. I’m initially a little disoriented, not used to actually getting a real night’s sleep, and it takes me a few minutes to get going. I make my way to the kitchen for coffee and remember with a jolt that it’s Christmas morning, that I was supposed to set out the things I’d need to make breakfast last night, that I now have to figure out how to make biscuit-dough cinnamon rolls instead of risen yeast dough ones because I didn’t make a sponge last night—

A pair of warm arms wraps around my waist, a slender, firm body pressing up against my back. Soft lips descend onto my neck and I melt into Credence’s embrace, helpless when he touches me like this. “Let me guess,” he says softly. “There’s some Graves family breakfast tradition or other that you didn’t set up last night and now you’re panicking because it’s Christmas and we won’t have freshly baked apple custard cake or whatever.”

I laugh, both amazed and sad, as he continues to firmly hold me there. “Damn it, sweetheart.” Tears well in my eyes. “You know me too fucking well, you know that?”

“Sh-h-h.” He nuzzles my neck again. “Am I allowed to come up with new traditions? Or is that forbidden by family code or something? God, did I marry into the Mandalorians here, or—”

This time it’s a real laugh, and I reach down to settle my hands over his and squeeze reassuringly. “No, Credence, you didn’t marry into the Mandalorians,” I tell him, even though I’ve dozed through most of the episodes of that show and have only the vaguest idea what he’s implying. “You can make up all the new traditions you want. What’d you have in mind?”

“Oh, good.” He spins me around, takes my arms and lightly places them around his neck. With one hand soothingly rubbing my lower back he says casually, “All right, then, new rule. We’re going to McDonald’s for breakfast, and we’re going to go through the drive-thru in our PJs.”

I can’t help but stare. This is not exactly the kind of thing I expected from him, Mr. Conscientious, the kid who said he’d rather get shot than shop on Black Friday. “Who are you and what have you done with Credence?”

“C’mon,” he coaxes. “Let’s do it. Let’s be crazy and selfish and do something completely off the wall, just this once. Let’s go get greasy disgusting biscuit sandwiches and eat them in the car and be _awful,_ just for today.”

“You can’t be awful on Christmas.”

“Why not? Ebenezer Scrooge got away with it for, what, fifty years?” Credence says playfully. He tugs me towards the door. “C’mon. I want a sausage egg and cheese biscuit and an oily hash brown, and I want to go get it dressed like a hobo.”

(Because of course Credence doesn’t wear neat, normal pajamas like mine. No, he sleeps in women’s sweatpants from Torrid and one of my ancient concert t-shirts.)

“We can’t,” I protest, but my feet are moving and I’m following him, another two steps and my car keys are in my hand—

“We are,” he tells me with a grin, and then we’re running out the door and down the steps together into the cold December air, and my heart is racing and I can feel his hand laced tightly through mine and I’m alive, alive, _alive,_ and he’s right there in this moment with me, and I’m breaking every rule in my own book…and my God, I can’t remember the last time I felt so good.

**Author's Note:**

> Conversion therapy TW spoilers: As a last-ditch effort to help her son in the face of bullying, Graves' mother sends him to a therapist in an effort to cure him of his sexual orientation. It's mild, just talk therapy, and he is eighteen when it occurs, but she essentially tricks him into going. He mentions in the narrative that it "wasn't as bad" as other kids had it and wonders why he's still affected by it years later. The therapist tried to talk him into self-harming with a rubber band in self-inflicted aversion therapy, it's implied that Graves refused to do it. This section lasts from "here's what really happened that summer" to "So why, I’ve asked myself for twenty years now, does it still hurt like hell?"
> 
> Homophobia/attacks TW spoilers: In the same section as above, Graves implies that his schoolmates viciously bullied him after he was involuntarily outed.
> 
> Mental health/panic attack TW spoilers: Throughout the entire fic Graves spirals progressively further into his own perfectionism-fueled anxiety in an effort to make the holidays "good" for Credence. He briefly passes out in Seraphina's office when the pressure gets to be too much; she sends him home and begs him to take better care of himself but he doesn't listen. The two incidents mentioned in the previous TW spoilers are dragged out at a family Christmas party, which sends Graves into a full dissociative panic attack. It's also discussed/implied that the conversion therapy incident left him with a distrust of therapists in general, which leads to him refusing to see someone to treat the PTSD he acquired during his time as a cop.
> 
> Self-harm TW spoilers: Graves mentions in the narrative that he once purposely burned himself to "make himself feel pain." Nothing seen, just mentioned in summary.
> 
> Implied past abuse TW spoilers: Credence was raised in a fundamentalist cult and it's mentioned that his mother deprived and abused him while he was growing up.


End file.
